RUNNING a festival which encompassed performances and workshops dealing
with such ideas as sound-art, interactive media and digital
technologies, and electronic music, would certainly not have been
plausible until very recently.
Times are changing, and as quick as one can blurt out “holy smokes”, a
new festival has landed on our doorstep. Tweak is coming to Limerick,
and is undeniably one of the most multi-faceted events to have take
place within this realm in not just this city, but the country.
While most people were trying to get over eating too much pudding last
Christmas, Nora O’ Murchú came back to work on her Phd at UL
revitalised after her holidays, and with plans of running a festival.
“I was trying to explore a couple of alternative avenues in Limerick,
and I have a huge love for digital art and wanted to bring that to
Limerick city as well,” she explains.
Considering that there are now Masters courses in Interactive Media and
Music Technology in UL, and numerous design courses in UL and LSAD,
Nora agrees that Limerick is ripe for an event of this stature: “The
course-work that’s going on in UL and the Art College is quite
reflective of what is going on in Tweak.”
Last February, she started lobbying a number of different people from
different disciplines for help, namely Jürgen Simpson and Robin
Parmar of Soundings, Sean Taylor at the Art College, and
designer/photographer Dave Gilligan, and was met by common enthusiasm.
“I just thought visually I could do a lot to help, and I think
myself and Nora had pretty much the same idea once we started to talk
about it. From there, it was the usual design process – deciding what
we wanted to say and how we wanted to say that,” says Dave.
“There was total freedom - we worked closely together, but we
were quite consistent in the approach we had to it,” he adds.
Of course, coming up for the name for anything like this can be one of
the more perplexing parts of the jigsaw. However, something stuck in
Gilligan’s head: “One thing I kept coming back to was where if
you’d be djing, producing, sampling, or anything like that; you’d have
knobs and dials - things that you’d tweak.”
The workshops element, taking in everything from circuit bending to
hacking, and all in between, kicks off on Monday (September 22), and
runs all week at the Limerick School of Art and Design.
An open call online for submission proved quite fruitful. “Submissions
came from all over the world. We had artwork from Israel, Japan and the
States, and workshops from places like Berlin and France. The reaction
has been phenomenal, and I didn’t quite expect to get so much feedback
straight away. Within two weeks, we pretty much had the programme laid
out,” admits Nora.
“We had themes that we wanted to bring into the festival, and we
had a few people in mind, so we approached them straight away, which
happened with the likes of Digital Slaves and France Cadett,” she adds.
The locations Tweak use are all city-based, which Nora stresses was
pretty crucial: “It is definitely a festival for Limerick City. It is
open to the public and the majority of the festival is free. It’s
important that people know that it is not just for students.”
Exhibitions will be around the city also, with one particular one
hosting five artists at the Istabraq Hall at Limerick City Hall. “They
are quite interesting pieces, I think a lot of people will get a kick
out of them,” says O’ Murchú.
The nightly talks and performances start on Tuesday night at Trinity
Rooms (September 23), with a Noise Night, album launch party for
Corrugated Tunnel, Norman Jay, and Candela Sound System all appearing
at the Granary venue during the week. The only ticketed event is the
Tweak After Party on Saturday night at the Boathouse on Sarsfield
Bridge.
One of the key events of the festival is on Thursday night (September
25) at Daghdha, with Soundings curating a line-up.
Robin Parmar of Soundings explains: “It has a lot of different
components. Lyric FM co-sponsors a prize every year called the
Diffusion prize. It is for young composers, under thirty-five years of
age, and it’s for multi-channel, surround-sound compositions. We will
be presenting the three winners.”
On top of that, previous winner Lucas Fagin will be showcasing his
work, UL’s Kerry Hagan will perform a piece, and esteemed composer and
writer of numerous texts, Trevor Wishart will give a talk and
performance. “He is amazing for anybody who wants to get into
electro-acoustic music and express themselves in a different way,
without using formal music notation,” says Robin, visibly excited.
While the music will be playback music, Robin is quick to point out
that they will “have the best multi-channel audio speaker system you’re
going to ever hear and it puts you right in the middle of the sounds.”
While it has been a hectic process organising the festival, Nora
acknowledges that it wouldn’t have been possible without the support of
Patricia Moriarty, the Department of CSIS and the Interaction Design
Centre at UL, and Joe Clarke at the Trinity Rooms, amongst others.
And it seems, eyes are already set on a potential Tweak 2009. “Tweak is
unique in Ireland and we hope to take it further from here. Hopefully
we’ll be able to do it again next year, bigger and better,” says Dave
Gilligan.
Tweak runs at various locations around Limerick from Monday, September
22 to Saturday September 27. Tickets for the After Party are available
from Empire Records (priced €10). More information from www.tweak.ie
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